Franklin Carter

"A nation is to be congratulated when it has many illustrious men in its history, to whom the people may look back with reverential love. Happy the people possessing among their dead a Washington, a Lincoln, a Grant. Each such name helps to hold the passing generations, with all their new problems and revolutionary impulses, in allegiance to the ideals of the past. One must believe that Westminster Abbey is a perpetual incentive to true patriotism; that beneath the constant influence of its noble monuments demagogues should not flourish. As one walks beneath those arches and reads the records of heroes who have died in various climes for England and mankind, of the statesmen and the authors who have for so many centuries been making the English language and ideas the most precious literary heritage of the world, one gets a profound impression of the solidity of English institutions, a firm confidence that widespread, deeply-penetrating roots will keep the English oak green for centuries to come."